A private security firm needs assistance from the Police at a Young Offenders riot. Richard Miller see's this as a perfect situation to highlight the force's opposition to essential services been transferred from the public to the private sector. However the PR strategy soon comes under attack and Miller is soon under attack from the deputy mayor. Robbie wonders if he will make it out of his final day un-armed before he heads to firearms training. Warwick is worried about some footage that has been release, so Tony and Banjo think they can make him feel better.

Ben Travers

Danny Boyle--but more so his co-creator Robert Jones and executive producer-lead writer Jesse Armstrong--has created a layered analysis of a failing system, and, true to its satirical inception, he doesn't let anyone off the hook.

Mary McNamara

Brian Lowry

Mike Hale

The in-the-field story lines, with their affairs and guilt and post-traumatic stress, tend toward the sentimental, and the series as a whole is weaker for trying to have it both ways--to be both a no-holds-barred, absurdist satire about the primacy of image-making and a straightforward drama about the nobility of public service.... But the jokes are pretty good over all.... And there are nice performances.

David Zurawik

Maureen Ryan

Though Babylon is pleasant and reasonably well executed, there's not too much to grab on to at the center of the drama; it makes moves toward engagement of knotty issues, only to ultimately skate along their surface. But Nesbitt is typically excellent and the show's depiction of London, its cops and its cynical politics can be diverting.

John Anderson

The nastiness of Babylon is refreshing, even while the writing fails to support either the level of acting or the atmosphere, which aspires to something far more clever than what the writers ... have delivered.

Brian Tallerico

The problem lies, as it so often does in shows like this one, with a tonal imbalance in the writing. Attempts at dry, workplace humor are intermingled with commentary on how much perception dictates policy. That’s all well and good but the humor isn’t funny enough and the commentary isn’t sharp enough.

Chris Cabin

Babylon wants to both mock the no-bull crassness of political wheelers and dealers and cling to a moralistic view of government, and the writers fail to find cohesion between these two perspectives more times than not. As a result, the humor often feels dulled by the relevancy of the subject matter, and the politics come off as both self-serious and frivolous.

David Hinckley

At times Babylon feels like it’s paying more attention to comic setups than the drama. At other times it isn’t. It’s not only confusing to viewers, it’s confusing to the cast, whose lines sometimes seem almost cartoonish.